


Start All Over

by acaciarosemasen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emma leaves Neal, F/M, Gen, One Shot, What if?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-26 00:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18272315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaciarosemasen/pseuds/acaciarosemasen
Summary: Emma overhears a conversation between Neal and August that changes everything.





	Start All Over

**April 2001**

Emma felt cold.

Frozen both physically and symbolically. 

She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. It must be a dream or a hallucination! It had to be. There’s no way that Neal would do this. But he is. The man she  ~~loves~~  has feelings for… the man she  _thought_  loved her - nods to the guy on the motorcycle. Agreeing with him,  _planning_  it out with him.

Emma had arrived at their meeting place earlier than expected. She couldn’t help herself, she  ~~is~~  was excited. She and Neal  ~~are~~  were going to start a life together. No more crime - they were going to start an honest living. In  _Tallahassee_. Emma shakes her head as Neal started talking but she can’t stand to listen anymore, she can’t stay.

_She does._

_She hears everything._

Hears motorcycle guy tell Neal that the watch Emma was wearing will be enough to put her away, just for a little while. Just enough to get her back on track. She, Emma Swan, is important… special. She must do her part in… in breaking the curse.

_What the Hell?_

There is no such thing as curses in the magical sense. There is no such thing as  _magic_. Point blank and period. Motorcycle guy is starting to sound just like Ingrid, the  **crazy**  woman who wanted them to become a family, for Emma to become her daughter… for Ingrid to be Emma’s  _mother_. The crazy woman who had tried to  **kill**  her. And God she hadn’t thought of Ingrid in a while - the pain still lingers inside her that the woman she thought of as a  ~~mother figure~~  role model was crazy and that all her hopes and dreams at fourteen were crushed within a matter of minutes.

Just like all her hopes and dreams of a crime-free life with Neal.

She starts paying more attention as she overhears Neal agree and that… that he wants no part in anything concerning… concerning the Enchanted Forest. Even if that means leaving Emma.

_What the Hell!_

Neal was… she can’t believe…

Neal is just as crazy as motorcycle guy and Ingrid. Maybe it was good he didn’t want anything to do with her. Even though she loves him… she doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Emma slowly and stealthily walks away. She doesn’t rush - rushing would only raise the chances of getting caught and she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t need that.

Emma doesn’t even breathe any easier as she gets further and further away.

She is five blocks away when her phone buzzes in her coat pocket. She mentally curses as she answers Neal’s call.

“Hey.”

“Emma? You okay?” Neal asks. She has to give it to him. Neal can act - it actually sounds as if he cares about her and is concerned for her well-being.

“I’m fine. Took the long way around. I’ll be there in twenty. You sell the stuff alright?” She questions.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you in a half-hour.”

“See you soon,” Emma tells him, “love you.” she barely waits for a response before she hangs up the phone and turns it off. She dismantles it quickly, throwing the battery in the trash and the separate pieces behind a dumpster and into a sewage grate. She hesitates when getting rid of the watch around her wrist. There’s a chance she can fence it herself and use the money to start all over but there is also a chance she’d get caught with stolen merchandise and she doesn’t want to risk it.

She can’t risk it.

Emma doesn’t know why but somehow, she just knows that she will regret getting caught… being sent to jail… In the next minute, she’s ripping the watch off her wrist and throwing it to the ground. Emma stomps on it once, twice, three times before taking off.

The blonde runaway also knew she couldn’t risk going back for the yellow bug that had become sort of like a home for her and her  _former_  partner-in-crime.

Shaking her head, Emma decided that she needed to get out of town. Now.

She has no idea where she’s going… well… she sure as hell isn’t going to Tallahassee.

Maybe she’d head to California. Or New York. She doesn’t care where life ends up taking her now, all she knows is she’s getting out and she wasn’t looking back. Emma thankfully had all her meager possessions with her already. Including the couple hundred dollars cash that she and Neal had left. It wasn’t a lot, but it would be enough to get her a bus ticket out with some money left over.

Emma makes it to the bus station in record time though she was careful to make sure she wasn’t followed. The runaway finds out that a bus to New York is leaving within twenty minutes and that a boarding ticket won’t put too much of a dent in what is left of the money. Emma hurries over to buy a one-way ticket and from there heads to the bus that will get her out of this place and take her far away from the man who sold her out to some stranger all because of some delusion in his head about magic.

There is no such thing as  _magic_.

If there was she wouldn’t have ended up in all those horrible foster homes. She wouldn’t have had a  **crappy childhood**. Maybe she would have been adopted by one of the families that had taken her in. Maybe a long-lost relative would have stepped up and claimed her.

But none of that had ever happened. Emma was the little lost orphan girl with no family and no friends. She thought she would have finally had that - a family - with Neal, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Emma snorts at that.  _Meant to be_? That was really sappy - even for her.

Getting on the bus is easier than she thought it would be. Though it all comes down to self-preservation. The fact that Emma’s looking out for herself… She grew up looking out for herself - if she didn’t, who would? Running away from Neal, motorcycle guy, and delusions about magic is easy to do because she’s only looking out for her own skin.

It’s second nature really.

_How sad is that?_

Emma chooses not to ponder on it too much. Instead, she reclines back in her seat at the back of the bus and waits for the rest of her fellow travelers to board and get their luggage settled. Ten minutes later the bus is leaving the station and Emma is on her way to start her life over. Definitely not for the first time, probably not for the last time but she secretly wishes, ~~as she did when she was just a little kid~~ , that this time would be permanent.


End file.
